Reclosable bag



Jan. 31, 1967 D. A. PERINO ETAL RECLOSABLE BAG 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Sept. 25, 1964 INVENTORS DOMINIC A. PER WALTER J. YAKICH MMQM ATTORNEY Jar l. 31, 1967 D. A. PERINO ETAL RECLOSABLE BAG 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Sept. 25, 1964 w TER J. YAKICH filfly INVENTORS DOMINIC A. PERINO ATTORNEY United States Patent "ice 3,301,466 7 RECLOSABLE BAG Dominic A.Perino, Bayside, and Walter J. Yakich, Oak Creek, Wis., assignors to Milpr'int, Inc., Milwaukee, Wis., a corporation of Delaware FiledSept. 25, 1964, Ser. No. 399,275

1 Claim. (Cl. 229-62);

This invention relates generally to the art of packaging. Specifically, it relates to a reclosable bag that has one end which is closed, but can be opened to provide an access opening for withdrawal of articles packed in the bag and then re-closed to protect items remaining in the bag.

This opening and closing sequence can be repeated as necessary until the bag contents are exhausted. 'In another aspect, this invention relates to a new manner of using a bag of the foregoing description in packaging operations involving filling and sealing.

A principal object of this inventionis toprovide a reclosable bag in which one bag end is closed by folding over a portion of the bag wall and an adhesive member is affixed to the bag to hold the folded-over portionagains t the bag wall; the adhesive member has a layer of normally tacky, pressure-sensitive adhesive so that the member can be peeled from the bag wall when it is desired to open the bag and then rejoined toathe bag wall whenit is' desired to close the bag. These features enable thebag to be particularly'useful for packaging those products which may not be entirely consumed when thecontainer in which they are packed is opened, as is often the case, for example, in packagingcandy, snack foods, cookies,

need to rupture apermanent or single-opening type of closure, such as a heat-seal ,or glue seam, or to rupture" of the bag wall in order to form an access opening. V

Another principal object ofthis invention is to'provide a new manner of using a bag of the type described above in packaging operations wherein the end of the bag that is closed by the folded-over portion and held closed by the adhesive member serves as the bottom of the bag during filling but ultimately becomes the top during nor mal use of the filled-bag. j I v i Still another principal object is to provide a bag having; one end reclosable by an adhesive member. bearing pressure-sensitive adhesive, in which the adhesive member is applied to the flattened empty bag instead of being applied to an expanded filled bag. This eliminates the need for specially designed and expensive machinery which would be necessary to apply an adhesive member of this type to a filled bag. Further, it enables the bag manufacturer, instead of the bag packager, to apply the'adhesive member, thereby relieving the latter of the necessityformaintaining an extensive inventory of adhesive members and installing special machinery. I

. More specific objects of this invention are to provide particular bag constructions which are capable of satisfying the foregoing objects and specific modes for using such bags in packaging operations.

Briefly stated, the objects of this invention are satisfied said end and affixing the folded-over portion to a bag wall by an adhesive memberhaving a layer of normally tacky, pressure-sensitive adhesive, with part of the layer joined to the folded-over portion and another part joined to a bag wall; the bag is filled through the open bag end, after which it is sealed in a single-opening type of closure such as a heat-seal seam or glue seam and access to the filled-bag is obtained by peeling back the adhesive mem- 3,301,466 Patented Jan. 31, 1967 her and opening the bag end closed by the folded-over portion. Reclosure of the bag is accomplished by refolding the folded-over portion against the bag wall and reapplying the adhesive member to hold it to the bag wall. In a use of a bag of this construction in packaging, the end closed by the folded-over portion is utilized as the bottom of the bag during filling and the initially open end is used for the introduction of commodity into the bag and then closed by a single-opening type of scam; in ultimate use, the bag end having the folded-over portion is the top of the filled-bag and the other end sealed with a singleopening closure becomes the bottom of the bag.

The above-mentioned and other related objects will appear in the description which follows. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof in which there are shown, by

way of illustration and not of limitation, specific forms in which this invention may be practiced. These will be described in detail to enable those skilled in the art to comprehend this invention, but it is to be understood that other embodiments of the invention may be used and that sc'ription should be interpreted as being illustrative only.

In the drawings: 7 FIG. 1 is a plan view of a bag constructed in accordance with this invention;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view of the bag of FIG. 1 taken along the plane of line 22, looking vin the direction of the arrows;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view of the bag of FIG. 1 in an' expanded position ready for the introduction of commodity;.

' nally and seamed together along a medial seam 11 to films such as those having functional coatings.

FIG. 4 'is' av sectional view of the bag being filled with a commodity from a hopper;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view of the filled-bag having a single-opening seal formed across the bag end through which the commodity was introduced;

FIG. '6 isv a sectional view of the filled-bag in its normal use with the end to be opened for access to the bag interior positioned in its normal or upper position; and

FIG. 7'is a perspective view of the filled-bag indicating the manner in which 'aconsumer may peel back the adhesive member to open the bag for removal of allor part of its contents.

FIG. 1 illustrates a bag 10 constructed in accordance with the present invention, which bag may be manufactured from a sheet of flexible material folded longitudiform a tube of material having opposed bag 'walls 12 and 13 as indicated in FIG. 2. Asv indicated by the dotted lines" 14 in FIG. 1, the tube may be folded so as to provide gusse'ts beside each side wall; however, the bags of this invention may be made with or without any side gussets. The bag 10 should be manufactured from flexible, foldable sheet material.

and copolymers, polystyrene films, polyester films, etc.;

paper; and cellophane and various cellulosic ester film materials are examples of suitable materials for the manufacture of the bag. The bag material can be single layer monofilms, multiple layer laminated films, or coated Preferably, the bag material is heat-scalable, either being of a thermoplastic material that is inherently heat-scalable without modification such as low density polyethylene, or of a material which has a heat-scalable coating applied, such as heat-seal'coated cellophanes. For normal packaging uses of consumer goods such as food, clothing, etcL,

Synthetic plastic films. such 'as polyethylene, polypropylene, vinyl' homopolymers.

3 the sheet may be in the range of one-half to ten mils thick.

The bag end 15 of the bag is open to permit filling of the bag as hereinafter described. However, the opposite bag end 16 is closed by folding over a portion of each bag wall surrounding the bag end. Referring to FIG. 2, a portion 12a of the side Wall 12 of the bag surrounding the bag end 16 is folded to lie against an exterior portion of the side wall 12 and a portion 13a of the bag wall 13 is simultaneously folded over with the portion 12a to lie thereagainst. The portions 12a and 13a of the respective side walls thus form a folded-over portion 17 of the bag Walls which closes the end 16 of the bag and lies against the side wall 12. Although shown herein as being folded only once, the portion 17 can be folded more than one time if so desired. Preferably, a creased fold line is defined at this end of the bag.

Returning to FIG. 1, the folded-over portion 17 is held against the bag wall 12 by means of adhesive member 18 which has a layer 19 of pressure-sensitive adhesive on one of its surfaces (FIG. 2). The adhesive member 18 is applied to the bag 10 with part of the layer 19 adhesively joined to the folded-over portion 17 of the bag walls and another part of the layer 19 adhesively joined to the exterior of the bag wall 12. This member serves to hold the folded-over portion 17 against the bag wall to thereby maintain closure of the bag end 16.

The adhesive layer 19 is to be a layer of normally tacky, pressure-sensitive adhesive, many types of which are well-known in the art and will not be described in detail here. Typical suitable pressure-sensitive adhesives include a rubbery polymeric material compounded with a suitable compatible tackifier and dispersed in an appropriate solvent for application to the article to be coated. Other ingredients such as antioxidants, light stabilizers, color pigments, fillers, viscosity reducing agents to provide an adhesive of coatable viscosity, etc. may be included to impart or enhance specific properties. Typical useful rubbery materials include natural rubber, synthetic rubber, latex crepe rubber, rubbery synthetic polymers and copolymers, and the like. Commonly used tackifiers include rosin esters, wood rosin, phenol aldehyde resins, coumaroneindene resins, terpene resins, etc. Aliphatic or aromatic hydrocarbon solvents are most often used with such adhesives. Pressure-sensitive adhesives of this type are often referred to as rubber-resin type adhesives, are aggressively tacky and also have cohesive properties so that the adhesive does not transfer or offset when it is removed from surfaces to which it is temporarily adhesively joined and can be handled without transfer of the adhesive to the fingers.

After the folded-over portion 17 is in position against a bag wall, the adhesive member 18 can be afiixed in the required position either by hand or machine operation. An advantage of the present invention is that machines are readily available for applying an article such as the adhesive member 18 to a flat bag. This enables the manufacture of the present bags through the use of readily available equipment. The adhesive member is applied in such a fashion that it can be peeled away from the bag wall when it is desired to open the bag end 16, as is more thoroughly described hereinafter, and can thereafter be rejoined to the wall 12 when it is desired to close the bag end 16.

FIGS. 3-6 illustrate various stages in a mode of using the bag 10 in accordance with the present invention in packaging operations. Starting with FIG. 3, a bag 10 is oriented with the closed bag end 16 at the bottom and the open bag end at the top. The bag end 15 is opened to permit introduction of any selected commodity into the bag, which can be done manually or mechanically such as by the use of an air blast or other suitable contrivance. After being opened, the bag 10 may be placed underneath a hopper 20 through which articles 21 are introduced into the bag; again, any suitable packaging machine may be used to fill the bag. After the bag is filled with the selected quantity, it is transported to a suitable sealing apparatus, preferably a heat-sealing machine (depending on the type of bag material used for the construction of the bag 10) which has opposed heat seal bars that clarnp together a portion of the bag walls surrounding the bag end 15 to seal them together. This is indicated schematically in FIG. 5 wherein heat seal bars 22 are represented as joining together contacting opposed portions of the bag walls 12 and 13 to form a heat-seal seam 23 thereb etween at the bag end 15. The term heat-seal as used herein is meant to refer to the process or property of softening or fusing to form a bond between contacting portions of material upon momentary application of heat and pressure. The temperatures employed are above the softening temperature of the material being heat-sealed when the material is thermoplastic and inherently heat-sealable or above the softening temperature of the heat-seal coating in the case of a coated material, the pressures generally vary between less than one pound to fifty pounds per square inch or more, and the dwell time during which the contacting material is subjected to the applied heat and pressure is normally from a fraction of a second to several seconds. Other forms of seams may be utilized to close the open end 15 such as a glue seam, and the particular method of closure will depend upon the nature of the bag material and the available equipment. In any event, the open end 15 is to be closed by a single-opening type of closure, which is herein defined as a closure which cannot ordinarily be rejoined after the seamed together portions are opened or which can only be opened by rupturing of all or part of the seamed together portions or rupturing of adjacent film areas of the bag walls. As an example, the heat-seal seam in a polyethylene bag cannot be normally re-sealed after once being opened and in many instances the heat-sealseam will be ruptured or adjacent portions of the bag material ruptured when the seam is opened.

After the bag is filled and the bag end 15 is seamed closed, the filled-bag is turned upside down to the position shown in FIG. 6 so that the bag end 16 closed by the folded-over portion 17 is arranged as the top of the bag during normal use of the filled-bag. Where the bag is printed, the printing is preferably arranged so that it is in a proper reading position when the bag end 16 is oriented to the position of FIG. 6, as is apparent by a comparison of FIGS. 1 and 7. When the filled-bags are shipped or stored, the bag end 15 will serve as the bottom of the bag. Thus, in accordance with this method, the bag end 16 is the bag bottom during the packaging operations, but becomes the top of the bag after it is filled.

FIG. 7 illustrates the manner in which a user can open the filled-bag 10. As indicated, the user merely grasps a portion of the adhesive member 18 and peels it away from adhesive contact with the bag Wall 12. When the adhesive member 18 is completely removed from adhesive contact with the bag wall, the bag end 16 is opened by unfolding the folded-over portion 17 of the bag wall, to thereby provide a commodity-withdrawal opening through which the contents of the bag can be removed. If the user desires to remove only a part of the content-s of the bag 10, he thereafter may reposition the folded-over portion 17 against the side wall 12 and rejoin the adhesive member 18 to the wall by gently pressing the adhesive layer 19 against the bag wall. In this fashion, the bag end 16 may be repeatedly opened and closed until the contents of the bag are exhausted, thereby providing a reclosable bag.

There has thus been provided a bag which can be made in the form of a flat bag having a first bag end closed by a folded-over portion of the bag walls and held closed by an adhesive member bearing pressure-sew sitive adhesive joining the folded-over portion to a bag wall and having a second bag end open to define a commodity-receiving opening through which the bag can be filled. The first bag end serves as a commodity-withdrawal opening when the adhesive member is peeled from adhesive contact With the bag wall to allow the bag end to be opened. Thereafter, the first bag end can be reclosed by rejoining the folded-over portion to a bag Wall with the adhesive member. In a use of this bag, the first end serves as the bottom of the bag during packaging operations but becomes the top of the bag after it is filled with commodity.

This invention provides a packager with a flat bag which is reclosable by means of an adhesive member, thereby eliminating the use of other closure devices such as strings, ties, etc., which are relatively inconvenient for the consumer to use. The bag is supplied to the packager in a flat, empty condition with the adhesive member in place to obviate the need for the packager to install machinery for applying adhesive members to a filled bag. Such machinery is not now readily available and would have to be specially designed at substantial expense. Also, the packager does not have to maintain an inventory of the adhesive members when using the bag of this invention. Thus, through the provision of a simple, economical bag, both packager and consumer obtain the benefits of a reclosable bag with-out incurring undue added costs.

It is to be understood that it is intended to cover all changes and modifications of the examples of this invention herein chosen for illustration which do not constitute a departure from the spirit and scope of this invention.

We claim:

A bag made of a tube of flexible material folded to define opposed bag walls and two bag ends, wherein:

said bag when in the empty condition has (I) a closed first bag end, and (II) an open second bag end, said first bag end being closed by the construction in which (1) part of the bag walls surrounding the first bag end is folded to close the bag end and to define a folded-over portion, and (2) an adhesive member including a layer of normally tacky pressure-sensitive adhesive is afiixed to the bag with part of the layer adhesively joined to the folded-over portion and another part of the layer adhesively joined to a bag Wall to hold the folded-over portion against the bag wall;

said second bag end defining an opening through which the empty bag can be filled; and

said bag when filled being closed along the second bag end and openable along the first bag end upon removal of the adhesive member from adhesive contact with the bag wall and unfolding of the folded-over portion to define a commodity-withdrawal opening, said first bag end being reclosable upon re-joinder of the adhesive member to the bag wall.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,394,335 2/ 1946 Shapiro 22962 2,620,120 12/1952 Andersen 22962 2,929,180 3/1960 Abrams et a1 5329 3,015,918 1/1962 Schoen 5329 3,154,239 10/1964 Madsen 22962 3,212,698 10/1965 Balcom 22962 JOSEPH R. LECLAIR, Primary Examiner.

D. M. BOCKENEK, Assistant Examiner. 

